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Address of 
President Ethelbert D- Warfield 



AT THE ANNUAL DINNER 
OF THE 

Philadelphia Alumni Association 

MARCH 5, 1914 



LAFAYETTE COLLEGE 
1914 






m 8 f9„ 



ADDRESS OF ^ 

PRESIDENT ETHELBERT D. WARFlfiLD 

AT run ANNUAL DINNER OF THE 

Philadelphia Alumni Association 
March 5, 1914. 

Mr. President and Gentlemen: 

I am deeply sensible of the warmth and cordiality' of 
the reception which you have accorded me. Nor is 
it less grateful that it is a familiar experience. For 
more than twenty years I have sat with you at your board, 
shared your fellowship and felt the tie of a common 
devotion. I have come to you confident of a hearty 
and helpful hearing. I have gone away cheered and 
heartened for my daily task. 

Very precious is the birthright. Yet the spirit of 
adoption is so strong that I have come to feel that I 
am native here and to the manner born. If you cannot 
vteach an old dog new tricks, there is still a fascination 
in the service of a man's own choice. If another cheer 
made my heart to leap, and the melody of another "Alma 
Mater" my pulses to tingle, in my college days, I have 
long ago learned to know the spell that binds you to 
*'the dear old College on the hill." She has taught me 
the lesson I would have you all to learn — of love through 
service. To her I have given the best I have had to 
Note. — -This address has been written out at the request of 
the Alumni Association from the notes used when it was delivered. 
It is not, of course, exactly as spoken. 



4 LAFAYETTE COLLEGE 

give. As Browning said of the land to which he gave so 
richly: 

"Open my heart and you shall see 
Graven inside of it — Italy;" 

SO if I were to open my heart to you tonight you would 
find inscribed within it — Lafayette. 

The reason the lessons of college life are so indelible 
is that, like those of early childhood, they are "learned 
by heart." They are the source of the memories which 
spring unbidden to the brain. And they are wisest whose 
minds respond most readity to the prompting of their 
hearts. So when I am asked by the ignorant multitude 
where Lafayette College is, I am wont to answer, in the 
hearts of those who love her. It was the Boston girl, 
you will remember, who insisted that Boston was not 
a locality, but a state of mind. A college, even today, 
may not wholly neglect the intellectual. So I should be 
justified in saying that Lafayette is in the minds of those 
whom she has taught to think. In the minds indeed, 
but even more in the hearts of you who tonight are 
thinking of her as your hearts direct — with a great, over- 
mastering, all-compelling love. 

- But Lafayette is more than an emotion, more than 
a thought — she is now actually on the map. 

A short time ago I received from the noble Frenchman 
who three years ago made a tour of America in the interest 
of the great cause of arbitration, the delightful record 
of his journey. The map which accompanies the volume 
marks his itinerary from Washington to the Golden 
Gate and back again to Lafayette College. I sought 



LMfAY^TTS COLLEGE 

in vain for Easton. The penetrating mind of the noble 
traveler saw that apart from the College the town was 
inconsiderable. And in great red letters on the map 
the truly significant spot greets the eye. The day that 
Baron d'Kstournelles de Constant came to see the noblest 
monument that grateful America has reared to the memory 
of his gallant countryman, was indeed a "red-letter" 
day — a glorious day, just when the promise of the spring 
was ripening into the fulfilment of summer. And as he 
charmed us with his delightful personality and led us 
willing captives with his persuasive words I marked 
with secret joy his responsive spirit fall under the spell 
of Lafayette. As it was with him, a little earlier it had 
been with the Count de Lafayette, who making a com- 
mencement visit, cried out with the enthusiasm of his 
race: "Why this is magnificent. You should not call 
it a college. You should call it a university." 

But it is not in a name, any more than in a locality, 
that the spell of Lafayette is to be sought and found. 
With prophetic love Junkin looked across the years 
and knew it as fully as we know it now. In a day of 
fuller material resources, with a poignant devotion, 
Cattell lived beneath its power and wrought in its strength; 
It is directing the efforts of hundreds of men tonight, 
the scholar in his study, the physician by the sick-bed, 
the chemist in the glare of the blast furnace, the missionary 
in the crowded city of China or the loneliness of the 
African jungle. 

The essential element in it is that undefinable but un- 
mistakable thing that we call manhood, "the one immortal 



6 LAFAYETTE COLLEGE 

thing beneath time's changeful sky." How it enobles 
our mortahty! And splendid as it is we have it in every 
gathering such as this. Does it not glow in the men 
who have made this association such a power? Not 
in vain has Philadelphia been called The City of Brotherty 
Love when it has given to Lafayette such trustees as 
Eckard and Hogg, Adamson and Radcliff e, Laird and Long. 
What rare initiative prompted Whitmer to undertake 
alone the endowment movement before which the whole 
college had stood abashed. What a service has the college 
rendered to society in giving a general manager to otu* 
greatest railroad which last year carried 111,000,000 
passengers without the loss of a single life. 

I would not cast the slightest shadow on this occasion. 
But while I am speaking of Lafayette manhood and the 
achievements of some of her sons, I ma}^ not omit a 
reference to one who in these last weeks has fought a 
good fight and come off victor. No soldier on the field 
of battle, no hero in the shock of war, was ever called 
upon to pass through a more fiery ordeal of pain than 
Andrew H. Reeder has just endured. With perfect 
courage, and that fine fortitude which is more than courage, 
he bore his own sufferings and sustained those near 
and dear to him b}^ the steadfastness of his great heart. 
He proved himself, as in so many ways he had done be- 
fore, worthy of Lafayette and of the name of Reeder 
so justly honored in his native town. To all her sons 
who do her credit in the walks of life the College brings 
a grateful mead of praise, but for such as he who un- 
complaining and unafraid go down into the dark valley 
of death she keeps the victor's palm. 



For manhood is the one immortal thing 
Beneath Time's changeful sky, 
And where it lightened once from age to age, 
Men come to learn, in grateful pilgrimage, 
That length of days is knowing when to die. 

"Beneath Time's changeful sky!" Ah, this changing 
world! How hard it is for those who are growing old 
to enter with understanding sympathy into the new 
world that is a-making. It is one of the tragedies of 
life that old and young, be they ever so dear to each 
other — father and son, teacher and taught — can never 
see this changing world from the same angle of vision. 
I sometimes think Kipling touched the keynote of the 
times when he said : 

It's like a book I think, this blooming world, 
Which we can read and care for just so long; 
And presently we think that we shall die 
Unless we get the page we're reading done 
And turn another — likely not so good. 
But what we're after is to turn 'em all. 

I sometimes think so, yet it is not for us "to get the 
page we're reading done," but rather, in the words I 
put at the head of my inaugural address : 

The old order changeth, giving place to new; 

And God fulfils himself in many ways. 

Lest one good custom should corrupt the world. 

The elder poet strikes the truer chord. Hoarding each 
precious hour, let us labor to the end that through us 
God may fulfil himself. 

Is it not true that beneath the eternal ebb and flow 
there are yet more eternal things that abide secure? 

Certainly this is so in education. Of two things I am 



? LAFAYETTE COLIvEGE 

ever more deeply and profoundly persuaded: The first 
is that the old ideal of a college education as a union 
of intellectual training and spiritual culture is sound; 
and the second is that it is through work, constant, ab- 
sorbing, dominating, intellectual labor that the College 
alone can justify itself to those who endow it and to those 
who entrust their children to it. 

Intellectual training and spiritual culture! Do not 
interchange the adjectives. Intellectual culture is the 
ripened fruit; College training but the first plowing of 
the soil. Put in a strong sub-soil plow and break the 
ground in great deep furrows. If there be wealth below 
rfind it, turn it up. The thin soils will not stand it to 
be sure. But what wealth of manhood goes undeveloped 
because we do not strike deep enough, do not give strong 
minds hard work to do. For myself I believe in the old 
classical education. As has been well said: "Time is 
money, loose cash in your pockets; but brains are capital. 
And there is not a better investment for them than a good 
sound ' classical education." But whether classical or 
modern, scientific or literary, let the education try out' 
the mind and train the man to think. I was brought 
up on a Kentucky stock-farm and I early observed that 
trotting bred colts naturally took to trotting, and pointer 
pups to pointing. I think the young of homo sapiens 
should early take to thinking — to thinking, and to think- 
ing thoughts that are worth while, "high thoughts, true 
thoughts, thoughts fit to treasure up." The stately 
movements of the greater thoughts of science, literature, 
philosophy, cannot be mastered but by long-continued 



I,AFAYeTTe COIvIyBGE 9 

and persistent work keyed to the measure of a lifetime's 
love. 

What happiness there is in such work. We are con- 
scious of the joy of the youth with the muscles all a-ripple 
down his back who strips for the contests of the grid- 
iron or the track. But what of him whose daily task 
not only gives exercise to the noblest faculties of man, 
but yields an ever-widening prospect of this world and 
now and again sees a new planet swim into his ken. 
Have you forgotten the day that through the none too 
transparent medium of a battered old school-book you 
for the first time caught a glimpse of the topless towers 
of Ilium? Cannot some of you recall the magic horn- 
when for you Shakespeare ceased to be a mere writer of 
plays and became a comrade capable of love? I speak 
of the joy of the work, but I cannot conceal the fuller 
joy of the reward of it all — a mind, a heart, a life, disci- 
plined and informed, filled with great memories and allured 
by greater hopes. 

It was such work that gave birth to the great tradi- 
tion of College life— its fruitful leisure, its stirring re- 
pose. The old spirit put the education above the de- 
gree, the thing itself above any of its uses. So the old 
fashioned merchant took a greater pride in the character 
and standing of his "house" than he did in the fortune 
it brought him. Now our boys make haste to get wise 
in the same spirit in which they make haste to get rich. 
And with this change has come a failure to discriminate 
the equipment of the man for the greatest of all adventures 
— the living of a life — from the training of the same man 



lO LAPAYETTH COLLEGE 

for one of the many activities of that life. With this 
change scholarship has fallen into small repute and the 
student who devotes himself to intellectual pursuits 
with all his might is not appreciated by his fellows. 
Indeed, a whole vocabulary of contemptuous terms has 
been coined to express the self-satisfied ignorance of 
burliptious boyhood. But this can be left to correct 
itself. Wisdom is still justified of her children. The 
pity of it is that a whole generation of youth is growing 
up in the belief that mediocrity is a virtue, and that success 
in life is rather the result of luck than of learning. 

Of course there is no lack of those who insist upon 
work. It is intellectual work that is so lightly esteemed. 
Yet that is the very thing that is indispensable. The 
College as distinguished from every kind of vocational 
school stands for nothing else. Most of the professional 
schools are requiring more and more years of College 
work for admission. The technical schools lag behind 
precisely because they fail to discriminate intellectual 
effort from mere work. Fortunately, the men of finest 
intelligence in the technical callings have done for them- 
selves what no institution can do unaided, and have 
achieved intellectual culture. Unfortunately, many of 
them seem to have concluded that it can only be a gift 
of the gods. The time must come when all the great 
professional schools will insist upon a more thorough 
intellectual training for admission. The first step must 
be the recognition that the most important instrument 
of scientific research is a well trained mind. 



As for Spiritual training, the College is not the place 
for it. That should be done at home. The College 
has a right to expect that the boys and girls shall have 
been taught to know their Bibles, and such trifles as the 
shorter catechism (or the Heidelberg, or some other) 
— not to lie, or cheat in examinations, and such other 
rudiments — before they enter College. But the College 
is the place for spiritual culture. Do you not know 
how those godly men of old Coffin and Porter and March 
yearned over you and desired to open to you not only 
the sciences of Physics and Botany and Language but 
the mystery of godliness, yea, the whole art of the Chris- 
tian life? I fear some of you then, as some of the boys 
of today, thought those noble men hard taskmasters and 
refused to open to them the way into your hearts. It is 
the bitterness of life that love does not always find the 
way. Nevertheless, we must be true to the old faith 
and place in the chairs of our College men who are seekers 
after God and also after the hearts of youth. 

The distinguished gentleman who has left the Senate 
to honor us with his presence this evening knows how 
great a place in the discussions of the time is held by the 
idea of Conservation. We hear a great deal about the 
conservation of our mines, of our forests, of all our natural 
resources. I am interested in the conservation of the 
greatest of our national treasures — the conservation of 
our boys. You remember that Bob Burdette used to 
say that "the dear girls just spread their wings and float 
up the marble staircase that leads to life's vaulted halls.. 
And the dear boys — do they spread their wings and float 



^■2 ivAf^AYETT^ College 

up? No. They just shoulder their feet and fall up!" 
Verily they blunder into life, and some, alas! out of it. 
And there are plenty of people to help them do it. Even 
parents have lost much of the old solicitude for a simple 
life nobly lived. As one mother said the other day: 
"All I want for my child is just four happy years in College." 
Four happy years! Years of full enjoyment of unearned 
pleasures. Harvest before seed-time. Such parents do 
not seem to stop to think what is good for boys. They 
are fearful of colds and football and study. They like 
to see their dear boys at tango teas, in the cast of light 
comedies, and among the most popular fellows in the idle 
set. Not thus are sturdy lads made into strong men. 
Such is not the ideal of our race, still less the realization of 
our faith. When God sent His son into the world to 
show men what a real man was like He set him at the 
carpenter's bench. When he had learned the great 
lesson of a large life in a lowly sphere, He sent him to 
preach a divine philosophy to hungry hearts that had 
learned to know that man cannot live by bread alone. 
When he had shown the world the heavenly beauty of 
humble toil, and the supremest glory of human thought 
and speech, He taught the last great lesson that only in 
sacrifice is labor and love made perfect, and nailed him 
to the cross of Calvary. From that hour it grows ever 
plainer to those that think, that the highest happiness 
comes through the hardest work. The task well done 
is the student's source of truest joy. The best College 
is and ever will be that in which the best work is done. 
A popular novelist has made one of his cleverest crea- 



I.AI?AYETTE COLLEGE 13 

tions say: "You young men of the present day make 
me tired! You all seem to think that larks ought to fall 
ready roasted into your mouth. There's not a blessed 
thing in this world worth having without sacrifice. The. 
big people, the people that have the big things in life 
are those that have paid or are prepared to pay the big 
price for them." 

Here democracy and aristocracy are reconciled in 
a. common effort sifting the capable from the incapable, 
the men who will from the men who won't. Here is 
where the College that drops with judgment but without 
compunction the incompetent and the idle renders a 
public service. It is good for the College and it is good 
for the boys to drop those who will not come up to a 
high and ever-rising standard. The harder they are 
dropped the better. For those who have any resilience 
may then rebound into College with more purpose and 
more applause. 

Not happiness in College, but happiness through Col- 
lege, is the phrase. For as Carlyle long ago said of life 
in general: "Our aim is not the greatest possible happi- 
ness but the greatest possible nobleness." That's the 
thought. Catch it and keep it. That's the aim our 
College cherishes for her sons: "Not the greatest possi- 
ble happiness, but the greatest possible nobleness." 
Long may we abide in that high faith. Mazzini com- 
menting on the thought has beautifully said : 

"Pain and happiness, all fortune and good, are incidents of 
the journey. When the wind blows and the rain falls, the Traveler 
draws his cloak closer round, presses his hat on his head and pre- 
pares to fight the storm. Anon the storm leaves him, the sunshine 



mk\ 25 1914 



14 I/AFAYSTTE COLLKGU 

breaks the clouds and warms his frozen Hmbs: the Traveler smiles 
and blesses God, But do rain or sunshine change his journey's 
end?" 

Neither rain nor sunshine shall change our journey's 
end. In good report and evil report we shall travel 
the road so well worn by many beloved feet. Let us 
look back a moment and recall what manner of men they 
were who taught us in travail and in tears to love the name 
of Lafayette. Then let us raise our faces to the dawning 
of a new and larger day and pledge oiu- loyalty to the service 
of the College of otu- love and of our faith. 



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